Can We Get Clean?
by Sorcha4
Summary: "You don't have to be alone, to be completely alone. You just have to outlive your hope." --Buffy.
1. Default Chapter

Dedication: For Emily. Emi this was written just for you, thanks for being the best table sis a girl could ever ask for. Looots of angst and woe, as well as a bit of b/a hope. grin The Internet is sooo my friend for letting me get to know you and all our weird coincidences. Love you. Sorch xx  
  
Heat was holding my flesh tightly, in a sweaty grip that teased and made me writhe in my own skin, slowly, oh, so, slowly evaporating me away. I was becoming part of the smog that hung over Los Angeles, darkened and filthy.   
  
My bones ached with the need to be cracked, lying face down in the same position for so long had taken its toll on my fragile frame, the body I destroyed. My face remained mottled over the left side, scratched deep by the sidewalk, my chest crushed from the body weight that was over me, I could still feel it. I still couldn't breathe, God, I couldn't breathe.  
  
A fingertip light touch fell on my shoulder, a reminder of violation, crying out I pulled away, the strangled sob tearing itself from my throat before I realised who was behind me. A shuddering gasp refilled my battered lungs and I let the tears fall down from vacant eyes.  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
Warm and rich, my name slipped off his tongue, flowed like blood. Naturally, like it was my life that ebbs away. The lifeline he gives me, my IV, my life-support. I tried to speak, but the salt had dried my lips together, too sore to pull them apart I merely moved my head, a nod. Warily his hand moved closer to my face as he sat along side me, sinking into the warm, soft bed beneath. When I didn't move, his fingers did, reaching out for my painted eyelid coloured black and blue by make up and bruises.  
  
They trailed to my mouth, leaving lines, like war paint. Was I a champion anymore? Did I deserve the camouflage of an honourable warrior? The red - my blood, my lipstick - began to mix with the blue 'shadow stains but I leaned my face into his palm, he was cool, he was water for the thirsty and food for the starved. He was an angel for the faithless and bread in a war.  
  
"You okay?"  
  
I don't know why he asked; there wasn't any visible skin that had its original colouring. There wasn't anything inside me that hadn't been stripped and degraded and left to rot. He couldn't see inside me so I can't blame him for that, one time maybe he could have, but you can't read a book when the pages are covered in dirt. I let my head fall in shame, averting his gaze and shook my head, so slightly, hardly discernible as a movement; but he caught it.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
I gave him a pained look, as if to say, you know what happened, please don't make me say it, please. I drew my gaze to my hands, anything but his eyes, until I noticed the shaking there. A sigh of the fear that had come afterwards, worse than before. The fear that still built in my gut even as I sat within reach of the only man that had ever made me feel safe, made me feel understood. I suddenly felt insanely esoteric as he pointed his gaze; fingers of his right hand wrapping round those of mine. The left raised my chin and I involuntarily made eye contact with him.  
  
His voice was just as calm as when he first asked, but it prodded. He intended to make me say it. He intended to make me face it, ironic really, cause I wasn't facing it at the time. Frustrated humour, I know I'm sickened now.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
I gritted my teeth, prising apart my salt-stuck lips to speak. I whispered the words, almost mouthed them and was surprised he heard them at all.  
  
"I was raped."  
  
His face softened, he looked surprised, angry - but not at whoever did this, he was angry with me. I didn't know what to say next, so I said nothing. Cool fingers wrapped around the edge of the bed as if they were wrapping around his rage. His face a mask, his body let it all away. I never mean to hurt him, because to be honest when I was where I was I didn't think of him anymore. I tried not to think of the things that had made up my life and lead to that place. All I thought about was how to get out, but there wasn't a way anymore. Tears clung to my lashes and I clung to his hand.  
  
One hand found my face again, and I relaxed into the touch.  
  
"How? This?"  
  
I looked down to his other hand, which emerged from the pocket of my jacket with a small package. I swallowed roughly, my throat hoarse and dry.  
  
"Yes…"  
  
He didn't say anything; we both stared detachedly at the paper packet between his long, pale fingers. He looked so solemn, as if he was concentrating, trying to see through the paper to the substance inside a small plastic bag. The powder I put in my veins.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I left. Without permission."  
  
He looks at me incredulously, a hand silently intertwining with mine. I know he wonders what happened to the girl that gave the orders. Why suddenly she's treating herself like a whore, abusing her stamina, and filling her blood with toxin. Maybe in some perverse way I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be taken down by a vampire. With all the poison tainting my blood they wouldn't drink me, far less turn. I would be safe from the undead's claws. I would be left to end at the hands of my lover pushing metal under my skin.  
  
Slowly he raised his hand to my face again and wiped the tips of his fingers over my lips, pulling off the smudged red. His voice was low, like a reverent whisper.  
  
"I'll be right back."  
  
My head was tight and hot, my fingers and toes felt too long, to well used, my mouth was dusty and my thighs bruised. My stomach and face were gashed my cheeks are bloodstained. My eyes were heavy and plastered with blue. The rouge on my face was flaky and my foundation was patchy, it stung the cuts on my face. The cover up over my bruises was gone, and the ache in my left cheekbone was throbbing and pulsing.  
  
I swallowed hard, my tongue rubbing a piece of broken flesh in my mouth, nursing the sour, copper taste. He sat down next to me again and quietly commanded I close my eyes. I obeyed, possibly from habit, or possibly from some world-weary desperation that he'll send me to Hell, if this wasn't punishment enough.  
  
Warmth, a warm, wet flannel touched my skin gently but firmly. I opened my eyes carefully to see him looking down at my skin, washing away the make up and dirt. Making me clean.  
  
Once the cloth had covered every dip of my face, he followed with his fingertips, a caress that longed for the memory of my skin. I still didn't look fresh and radiant. My skin was still dull and yellowed, the dark circles under my eyes remained and the bruises and gashes that marred my sallow complexion were still there as a painful reminder of what a man that had given me nothing other than an addiction could do.  
  
He let his fingers linger in the hollow of my cheek, whispering hoarsely.  
  
"There you go."  
  
I leaned forward slightly, letting my forehead rest on his until we were nose to nose, the most intimate contact I've ever had with anyone, not because of the position, but because of the person. Thick tears spread themselves over my eyes at the overwhelming feel of his skin, the soothing quality as it smoothed over my own, like a balm.  
  
"I'm still dirty."  
  
I choked out.  
  
"All over… Inside… My mind, my heart, my veins. You can't erase it with soap."  
  
He looked at me helplessly, as if he was drowning in my sorrow rather than his own for once. When he spoke it was almost silently, the light brush of air on my face like he was talking to my skin, trying to plead with it to become clean.  
  
"I can't take it away, Buffy. I can't make you forget about it and I don't have the right to. I don't have anything profound to make you okay again and I can't be as hypocritical as to judge your life. But I can try… I can try and clean your skin. It's the only dirt I can take away, the only part I can help you with, Buffy."  
  
I frowned slightly, half to myself. Watching the patterns his eyes traced over me. Stocktaking, it reminded me of a shopkeeper checking that everything was okay and in the right place. That nothing had been damaged. But I was damaged.  
  
"You still get left with the scars though."  
  
"That's part of life."  
  
"Having all your dignity stripped away until you depend on white powder to get through another day of abuse to your body?"  
  
"It's not what happens that's important, Buffy; it's how you react, it's how you cope. Everyone is allowed to make mistakes and everyone is allowed some help and a second chance."  
  
The tears I was desperately holding in began to run down my throat, the salty water making me gag. Running fingertips worriedly through the ends of my hair I looked away from him, turning slightly to break any physical contact.  
  
"I don't want your pity, Angel."  
  
"Buffy…"  
  
I continued to talk before his interruption could continue into a fully formed sentence. It hurt to let the words scrape their way up my throat but I couldn't take his charity if it was purely for pity's sake, because he felt like I needed it. I could only take it if he thought I deserved it, no matter how much I needed his help at that point my pride still stood in the way. It didn't matter that he had found me half-naked, half-dead, face down on a sidewalk. It didn't matter that he had found powder in my pockets and holes in my arms, or that I had knuckle marks on my face and a man who wanted my blood for very different reasons than the one who sat in front of me.  
  
If he didn't truly think I deserved another chance, outside of pretty words and conveniently forgotten promises, then I would leave him with his pity.  
  
"I don't need it."  
  
He looked me in the eye and lied to save my pride.  
  
"I know."  
  
His fingers laced with mine and I yawned softly, heaviness pulling on my eyes and my bones. He moved so that I could curl down on the soft duvet, so forgiving, the way it cradled my body like a mother's arm and caressed my face like a lover. He folded the excess over the top of me; waves of soft, cool fabric cocooned me in his presence.  
  
His lips pulled gently on my right cheek, avoiding the mottled left, and he breathed over my skin.  
  
"You deserve it."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
I let my paper thin lids close over eyes that had seen too much and let the ache inside fade away for a few hours of unconsciousness. And I let him hold my hand. And he let me pretend to be immaculate. 


	2. Part Two

My teeth throbbed with hang over, they felt thick, furry, and a deep-rooted ache crawled up my face and into my cheekbones. A pressing, sweating pain held my head as I pulled my eyes half open, looking up blearily with a heavy-lidded gaze. He was looking down at me, my hand still gently enclosed in his. I breathed a small sigh as his thumb lazily played over the tips of my fingers, soothing, cooling.  
  
The sigh turned into a hacking cough and I rentched up right clutching my chest, trying to grab hold of the pain and rip it out of myself. The cough turned to retching and I tasted the vile, bittersweet taste of vomit on the back of my tongue. The blood pooling just below it.  
  
My feet hit cold floor and his hands guided me shakily towards a sink. the foul, pink-tinged spit hit white ceramic, gunged with blood and vomit. He held my filthy hair out of the sink and I cried.  
  
I spent the next two hours sitting on the bathroom floor, breathing heavily. The only sound I could hear was my own breath wheezing through raw nostrils. He didn't bother me, didn't talk to me, I think he went to his chair by the bed and pretended to read a book.  
  
It's not that I didn't care, I did care, but I was more scared. Scared to move in case something else inside of me broke. But I meant what I said before I fell asleep. More than anything else, more than getting better, I didn't want Angel to pity me.  
  
I peeled off my dirty clothes wincing at each graze that had cotton tangled in it. Water hit me, cold then hot, tears streamed down my skin as pain scraped at my body and the water settled itself to a tepid medium. I turned up the heat preferring to scald my skin than let the dirt stay for any longer than necessary.  
  
Afterwards I stood shivering on the tiles. My body not adjusted to room temperature. Automatically I dried but looking down at the thin, fetid  
material that was left of my clothes I pulled the warm, wet towel more firmly around myself and let my feet sink into the soft, padded carpet.  
  
"I- I don't have anything to, uh, wear."  
  
I looked away embarrassed, I don't know why - it's not like I packed before my little excursion. Still, the dependence made me feel weak. I didn't like feeling weak. He looked up from his book and picked up a small pile of clothes from the bed, walking slowly to place them in my tiny, sweating hand.  
  
He could probably feel the steam off my skin, see the water droplets hanging from my glistening lower lip, smell the warm, clean just-washed, non-fragrance from my damp hair. He could probably hear my heart beat.  
  
"Sorry, they're a bit big but-"  
  
I waved him off.  
  
"Thanks, not like I thought you'd have convienently sized woman's clothig lying about... You don't do you?"  
  
Suddenly I worried, not that he would have the clothes more who would wear them. Not that I thought he would, but that would mean there was a woman in his life. I didn't want Angel right now, I didn't want anyone, not after-- But I also didn't want to intrude on some life he might have built and as selfish as it may seem I didn't want him to make someone else happy when I had given up that privilege myself. He shook his head quietly.  
  
The bed was soft and warm, freshly changed. The window was half open to let a breeze of cool air caress my skin and I sank into the mattress in over sized sweats, chewing nervously on one sleeve.  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
My head shot up causing a bolt of pain to hit the back of my eyes. Angel nodded towards his sweater a slight frown colouring his features and I very deliberately removed it from between my teeth.  
  
He sat by me, not wincing as I scooted further up the bed. His voice was low, placating, tired.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Why, what?"  
  
"Why this?"  
  
He took hold of my arm, his thumb pressing gently over the holes still waiting to to close over.  
  
"I told him I'd quit."  
  
My voice was unclear, covered in layers of upset, trying to push past my raw, gungy lips.  
  
"I told him, if she died, I'd quit. So, I quit."  
  
-----  
  
The blackened kerb stretched out beyond my cheek, the side of my face - once a plump rose - was hollowed out and grafted into the sidewalk.  
  
My arms were tangled underneath me, pressed hard between my jutting hips and cold, cracked cement. My skirt tossed upwards provided no dignity and the panties thrust back on haphazardly - they were backwards - were ripped along the left-hand seam.  
  
I heard footsteps and I heard them fade away. I was just another junkie. Except I wasn't anymore. I was just some poor street kid that had the misfortune of being abused. Or maybe a prostitute that had been conned out of cash. I know that's what people thought when they passed me that night, because in honesty that's what I used to think when I saw them, the ones that looked like they were sipping from the gutter. If they crossed my path, my path would change direction.  
  
I tried to get my arms out, to readjust my skirt, but I was too heavy, too sore. Strange cause I'm sure I didn't even weight ninety pounds by them, more like ten.  
  
It was then I registered a humming. The louder it got, the nearer, the more I realised it was a voice. I curled. My hands reaching out for my knees as they in turn sought out my chin. The movement was feeble, looked more like agonised writhing than an attempt to save myself.  
  
Hands held my shoulders and I sobbed out a cry. This was it; either they had come back for me or some street gang was about to tear me into pieces for fun.  
  
Hands rolled me over. Angel.  
  
-----  
  
The pads of two fingers dimpled my eyelids. I breathed out stale air; none of the air in this room had been circulated through a body. Not a breathing one.  
  
"I killed you because.. I had to. But as I got older and more and more people left me I realised what you meant about loneliness. You don't have to be alone, to be completely alone. You just have to outlive your hope."  
  
My voice wavered. I stopped, hoping for some kind of response, something to relieve me of pouring out my heart. It didn't want to watch it evaporate, not when I knew he wouldn't breathe it afterwards.  
  
His eyes dulled, because he knows that pain, he lived with that pain every day, but he had never given up fighting. Not like me. Silence over took everything, the fabric-swish, clock-tick, water-drip mundanity of life ceased for me as I divested myself of secret pain I'd pockets and powdered out for so many years.  
  
"So, you just left and decided it might be more fun to shoot up and get raped than actually be strong for once?"  
  
"I was nothing but strong, no one can keep feeling that pain and just live with it, Angel. Nobody's that strong!"  
  
He had my number, I wasn't strong. I never had been. All my life I let someone else pick up the slack for me, whether it was in school or at home or when I was slaying. I'd always had someone around to pick up the pieces and maybe, just maybe when that someone was me, I freaked. Maybe that's why I bailed. But I can't believe that was the only reason because I'm not so weak as to run away at the first sign of something hard. Hey, I stuck by Angel didn't I? I fought to keep him, and maybe I didn't fight hard enough but I was barely eighteen years old, I didn't know what I was fighting against, what I was fighting for. Angel's gaze was so cold. So angry. There was something about the way he held himself that belied all the information, emotion that he was hiding from me.  
  
"Buffy, you never even tried. You didn't even grieve. You left before they buried her and never came back. You haven't even seen your sister's grave and she's been dead for three years."  
  
His voice was pleading as if he was asking me something. I know he's seen her grave. And I wanted to, but I was scared that if I did it would all get too much, because I loved her so much.. And she was a part of me, and when she died she took some of me with her. How much of someone can get left in death before they rot away?  
  
"Please, please just don't."  
  
"Don't what? Punish you? Make you face what you ran away from? Make you snap out of your insane fantasies and wake up to realise you were just raped Buffy, you were half dead, on the street, you couldn't move because they beat you so badly and you chose this!"  
  
My voice cracked.  
  
"I never chose this. Okay, Angel? I made a mistake and I got trapped in it, but I never asked for this. Never".  
  
His voice wasn't even a whisper anymore.  
  
"What did you ask for?"  
  
"You".  
  
His hand leaned out in comfort but I lashed it away with a sloppy backhand, crying out as my attempt to quell my crying failed. I sank in on myself, as he sat beside me helpless. He didn't touch me, didn't speak to me, he just sat beside me and held one of the pillows on his lap. His eyes holding me. 


End file.
